Boys' antics

Last night I got back into my craft room (well dining room really lol) and completed two more layouts :) I had some pictures of my eldest and youngest being cheeky and chose to use those.

The first one is from when my eldest was 18 months old about 10 years ago now (OMG that sounds a long time!) we were visiting my in-laws oop north and whilst at my father in laws Joel had a sit in his truck. He loved being up there and did not want to come back down he would not let go of the steering wheel it took something chocolate to get him to let go lol

My second LO is using pictures from a few months ago, Alex always has to take his Mickey Mouse out with him on the school run but some days if he has been playing with lots of toys he insists on taking all of them with him. On this day he had 3 cuddly toys and when I tried to get 2 of them off of him he just grabbed them tighter.

Thanks for coming by have a lovely day whatever you are doing :)

Rainy day crafting

Between the awful weather and Phil "dying" we were not able to take the kids out at all today it was just so miserable here and Phil bless him is in pain and completely off his head on the drugs they gave him lol. So I spent some time today colouring some more stamped images and made two card and bookmark sets one of them for a non reader of my blog so I have can share but the other is for an occaisional reader of the blog so it is staying under wraps for now.

After the cards and bookmarks I did this double layout of the kids on the trampoline this April, I spent ages cutting out all the swirls and flowers from a co-ordinating 12 x 12 pp but it was worth it. The letters for the title don't show too well in the photo it was so gloomy I had problems getting a good pic but they really pop irl.

This is the first card I made for a friend. No reason behind it it's a just because card;

and a little bookmark for her too as she loves to read;

Thanks for popping by hope your bank holiday monday was more sunny than mine :)

My Grenadier

This weeks challenge on UKS was covered at short notice by jo.bee as the original setter was taken ill and so I offered to do a sample LO for Jo. This is one of the 3 LO's I couldn't show you last week.

The criteria were to use a 4x6 photo, use punches, and include something historical. Phil was quite pleased to have a LO detailing the history of his regiment and it was nice to do something so different. I think I may have to get more For the Record papers though I have nearly used them all and I love them so much lol

Birthday girl

Yesterday was my daughter's 7th birthday. I have no idea how that happened she iw too little to be 7! She had a lovely day got thoroughly spoilt and after we took her out for a meal with my parents my mum and I took her to a craft shop as she wanted to get some crafty stash of her own. She bought a few bits and bobs there I had to keep saying no to her though it felt mean but at the same time her spending £5 on 6 flowers was a waste of her money imo as she only gets a little.

Here is her with the LO she completed all by herself with her very own stash :) It is very much throw absolutely everything on but I love seeing how the kids do their pages and always let them do what they want. The temptation is there to say hmm this would look better or don't use the whole pack of stickers at once but then it would be what I wanted it to be and not what they wanted.

I had to share this pic of her blowing out her candles it is just too funny :) I will be getting a print of it asap and check out the lovely cake made by my talented mum who also made my wedding cake. She is fairly amazing :)

I had a very busy day today DH is "dying" and had to be taken to minor injuries it is muscle spasms in his shoulder and he is pretty drugged up and while he was there and it is only a couple of minutes from Tesco I braved the weekly shop on a Sunday alone with all 4 kids! I survived so that's something lol

I completed my latest CJ entry and a LO of Alex this afternoon. Alex is a big Mickey Mouse fan he has has his Mickey since he was very little and it goes everywhere with him except the bath (not for want of trying mind). On the rare occasion we get him in the car or buggy and head out to find we have forgotten Mickey we have to find something to distract him or he gets rather upset.

The CJ was on the theme of "Inspire Me" and we had to either journal about a card or a LO. I kinda cheated in that I did a giftcard card but they are just so cute to make and the christmas Toys R Us vouchers for the nieces do look better in them than stuck on the card they provide. If you want to try them you should be able to read the instructions from the photo on here but they are fairly easy and can be adapted for different sizes easily enough. They can also be used for an ATC if you are sending one out :)

Birthday cards

I am not very good with cards I go into the task with these great intentions of making beautiful cards like I see my friend Vix making but then I lose focus and patience. To be honest I would rather be scrapping and although I love to colour the stamped images I have no desire to really go all out on the rest of the card. With that in mind here are 4 of the 5 cards I made last night for my DD's birthday tomorrow. I can only show you 4 as I made an envelope for the 5th and put it in and sealed it before remembering about pics lol. I have to make so many as each of her 3 brothers have to give her a seperate card then she needs one from Phil and I and one from the pets (I know I am daft)

Pink Lightning by the wonderful Jasmine Beckett Griffith

All I want for christmas a freebie from the talented and beautiful Selina Fenech coloured as a birthday girl rather than a christmas one

Skulls and stars again by Jasmine Beckett Griffith

Noon and Moon swing from Crafts and me in their digi section

Heartbreaker

This is my other LO from last night for the Sarah's Cards sketch Yesterday was Dylan's school play and luckily Phil was off so we both went to see it. The play was a musical on the David and Goliath story he was a narrator a role he seems to get every time because he is such a good reader and has a lovely clear voice and his girlfriend -Sadie was David.

After we had got home and Dylan and Kari had got changed from their school clothes we took them and Alex to the local farm park to feed the ducks and geese (Joel is away all week on a school trip and I am missing him sooooo much :(). In the car on the way there DYlan told us that he and Sadie had had their first hug as boyfriend and girlfriend <3 they are both only 8 years old :) He is so adorable and I had to record this. The journalling goes around the blue paper and reads;

"It is 24th April 2011. You have your first girlfriend and you told us today that you and Sadie had your first hug. You are such a sweet loving boy, charming, easy going and handsome that although I can't see you meaning or wanting to I can see you breaking many hearts in the years to come"

Feeding the swans

Morning blogland it appears as though whatever issues were plaguing blogger yesterday have been resolved (at least for now). I did two LO's last night one of each of my older boys but I am doing two seperate posts as they are both for challenges and I want to make it easy for them to be found :)

The first one is for one of April's scrap map challenges at Creative Craft World I love this blog it is so full of inspiration and challenges and having recently subscribed to their kits I am anxiously looking forward to receiving my first one :) I used some pictures of myself, my dad and my eldest Joel feeding the swans on the River Thames at Windsor. I was 9 months pregnant in these pictures only a week away from my due date but Dylan kept us all waiting being 2 weeks late!

Joel used to love going down the river and feeding the birds and we used to go most weeks until we moved from Windsor. He used to feed the ducks by hand but was a bit nervous of doing the same with the massive swans (well to him they were) though he was happy to watch us feed them. The doodling in the corners of the blue card are white feathers which look much nicer irl than in the picture :)

*Knock knock, can Blogger come out to play today?

Blogger has again today been acting up so I am not holding any hopes that this will actually publish lol. This is for this weeks challenge on UKS and was set by the Crafty Magpies and their challenge was a Magpie;

M - use Metal

A - use Alphas

G - Got sketch use the supplied sketch

P - Punch paint or pearl (I chose pearl)

I - Inspiration - use an inspirational quote

E - use Embellishments

All elements fulfilled and I loved the sketch so here it is thanks for popping by I am going to try and publish before I get booted off lol

Sunday fab four

I got back into the dining room to craft yesterday YIPPEE! I did 4 LO's but can only share one of them as the other are for upcoming UKS weekly challenges. This is just a simple no journalling LO of me when I was young free and single, I am not sure if it still needs something but I am leaving it for now. I used Glitz Love nest PP Damask and Fabulous using both sides of each pp. I cut the scrolls from the Fabulous papers and made the flowers from both. I finished it with some glitter puffy thickers, some pearls and Love nest stickers. Thanks for popping by :)

A little afternoon crafting

I was not impressed with my youngest this morning when he decided to get up at 6am and hour and a half before I had to be up! I am used to him laying in so it was quite a shock to the system but the flip side was he fell asleep on the afternoon school run so you know what that meant yup scrapping YAY :)

I decided to scrap these photo's of the little man throwing a complete wobbler at the park early last month when Kari dared to stop him going for a wade through a humungous nettle patch how very dare she! lol I didn't quite manage to get it finished before he woke but only had the sticking down to do at that point so still managed to get it done before doing dinner :) TFL x

Finally back to my paper scrapping :)

It has been a very long week and a bit with no papercrafting but everything has been so hectic here it just hasn't been possible until last night. I only had time to do one LO and I did the UKS weekly challenge as I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

The challenge this week was to;

1/. Scrap about someone or something special to you

2/. Use no more than one of any item excluding photo's and lettering

3/. Use the colour green

I decided I wanted to stray from the expected path and not scrap about my kids, husband, pets or wider family. I chose to scrap about Rhino's which have been my favourite animal for as long as I can remember and are very special to me. I have sponsored a Rhino at Whipsnade Zoo for many years with the money going to help maintain Rhino habitats in the wilds of Africa and this is one of the Photo's I have been sent of my Rhino.

The elements I used are some thickers for the title, one large gem and one piece of 6 x 12 inch paper. The paper was a 12 x 12 design of coloured spots one side which I used for the mat behind the photo. On the other side the paper was divided into 4 6 x 6 sections of different designs. I cut the large flower from one section and then cut two sections from it to make the two flower embellishments. I cut a section from the mat behind where the photo sits so you cannot see the missing section and then cut it into strips and used the reverse side pattern for the vertical strips of PP.

Around the edges of the card I jotted down some Rhino facts here they are for you;

-There are five types of Rhinoceros that survive today; White, Black, Javan, Indian and Sumatran Rhinos.

-All but the Indian Rhino's have 2 horns.

-Rhinoceroses belong in the same mammalian family as Tapirs, Horses and Zebras- Perissodactyla; hoofed animals with an odd number of toes.

-The Indian Rhino is sometimes known as the Unicorn Rhino as it only has one horn.

-The White Rhino was actually mistranslated from the dutch Wijd meaning Wide.

-The largest land mammal ever known was a hornless Rhinoceros; Baluchitherium which lived in Asia 40 million years ago. It was about 27ft (8m) long and 17ft (5m) high.

Page from today's photos

I need a decent printer one of my biggest problems is having to wait for prints to arrive or pay extortionate prices in the high street. So I took some photo's today of Alex playing horsey with Joel and was able to scrap them instantly :) I am getting on OK with this digi lark but I think I need a different programme the one I have is easy to use but it is a pain to get any digi kits into it apart from the ones from the programme's developer.

Some more digi

Here are two more digi pages. I have to say it is quite nice to be able to sit and create without getting all my stuff out which takes a good half hour but it still has me itching to get in and get messy again. Hopefully I will be able to get some crafting done today but I am not holdinh my breath as we have a few things on and then with hubby away tomorrow I doubt I will get chance with all four kids to watch on my lonesome :(

Bit more digi practice

I am not going to be able to get any paper scrapping done until the weekend and maybe not even then as the kids have friends round saturday and hubby is working sunday so I had a bit more of a play with the digi software. I think I am getting the hang of it slowly :)

First foray's into the digital world.

I have been stuck the past week or so with a complete Mr Whingey Pants! As such I have been increasingly stressed but with no chance of getting near my craft stuff so I decided to have a look into Digi Scrapping which I could do on my lappy while sat with the monkey.

I have Photoshop elements (PSE 7) on my PC it came pre-loaded but I don't think it is a scrap friendly version at least I cannot for the life of me figure it out so I downloaded some free software from Daisy Trail and some of the freebie digi sets from SHabby Princess and Dawn Inksip to get me started.

I am still unsure about it to be honest I prefer getting messy and having different dimensions and textures and I find the Digi version very hard to get the hang of. I have 2 LO's I have done here the first one was a total omg what am I doing one and the second is a little better but still not what I would want it to be. So I think I will be sticking to paper seeing as these took nearly as long and just don't work imo (so much for me thinking digi scrapping was easier than paper lol)

Weekly UKS challenge

This week the challenge was set by SheilaJ and it is by far the trickiest challenge I have seen but then they aren't meant to be easy :)

This is the challenge as described by Sheila;

Good Morning all!

Your challenge this week is a tribute to one of the huge benefits of being a UKS member.
You are invited to produce a page or other scrapped item about TEACHING and /or LEARNING. Size and format can be anything you choose.

Points
5 points per technique that you have learned anywhere in the last 3 months to a maximum of 20 points (4 techniques).
5 points for adding something secret to your work. Interpret this any way you like!
5 points for including instructions or a recipe or other "How to" information in your work. This need not be serious practical instructions but could also be funny etcetera.

I have learnt plenty of new techniques over the past 3 months having newly returned to scrapping and following so many inspirational blogs and galleries in UKScrappers the issue is how to get 4 in one LO. I knew I didn't have to do the whole four but I am fairly stubborn and determined and I wanted to keep my perfect scores on the challenges going lol.

My first decision was to use the reverse decoupage technique I came up with a couple of weeks ago (not claiming to have invented it just not seen it anywhere else yet). I then decided to use paper flowers, a moving element, and to cut the title out of the paper used and have a cut out rather than stuck on title which I have not done before.

I made the LO about what I have learnt as a Mum, and my hidden (secret) journalling is done in the form of a recipe. Here is the finished LO if you don't want to be bored with all the how to's ignore the rest of the post as it's going to be long and photo heavy :)

Here is a close up of the layering on the reverse decoupage as you can see it is very dimensional I used my Cricut to cut out the shapes this time instead of hand cutting them as I did with the Sweet Dreams LO;

This is a close up of the cut out title. I used my Cricut to cut the word Mum out of the first decoupage layer and then backed it with the pale yellow card I used for the journalling card so that the word could be seen clearly;

This is a close up of the paper flower. This is a new one to me I started using 6 petal flowers with the intention of making a paper rose but decided to change it slightly by making all the flowers different sizes but with the same number of petals so it is less rose like. I used a brad to attach all the flowers together and attach it to the journalling card as a "pull" then bent the petals back so they could be seen;

Here is the hidden "secret" journalling card with a recipe for a good mum :) I foolishly attached the flower before writing my "recipe" so excuse the handwriting lol ;

For my last technique I used a brad and some card attached to the bird to allow it to "fly" around the LO. I love this technique which I learnt from the lovely MJM and plan to use it again but on a more traditional circle shape so that it is easier to do and also on a flatter LO so there are less obstacles to movement! ;

So there you go. I hope you like the finished product as much as I do and maybe saw a technique you would like to try :)

Monday night crop

It was my monthly crop last night and I managed to get a double layout and a single layout done. I started off doing a LO celebrating PHil's first Triathlon which he completed recently. The map was a charity shop bargain and the papers were the TKMaxx bargains so the whole DLO cost me about 50p to make not bad eh? Thanks to wonderful Sue at the crop for letting me use her Cricut as I had no Alpha sets with 3 fours in (why couldn't he finish in 45,16?) The title 44:14 is his finish time 44 mins and 14 secs :)

I then scrapped a recent picture of my eldest on his way to a disco. He doesn't like smiling very much he has a teen attitude already but then so does my 6 year old daughter lol :). The papers again were from TKMazz so this LO probably only cost around 50p too. Love bargain hunting :D

More sunday crafting

Kari and I had a drive up to our local TKMaxx and found lots of We R Memory Keepers goodies on sale. I bought some kits that were down to £2 each and each had 10 papers (some double sided, some diecut) a sticker sheet and an extra (one had brads, 2 had ribbons, one had stamps and one had a second sticker sheet). I think for the grand total of £10 I got a huge amount of stash :) Kari bought herself a page kit, I did warn her it was already all stuck down but she got it anyhow for £1. She chose her pics added some journalling and flowers and here it is! I have to say her journalling needs work she has written this is her being "modest" I can't say I agree lol but doesn't she look pleased?

While Kari did her page kit I scrapped another photo from our park trip a few weeks back. I had cut these bits using Cindy Loo when I first got it and so wanted to use them. The cut out at the top is meant to be a cupcake paper but with the ends cut off I think it looks fab on a page :) The card is actually red but it was so sunny yesterday it came out pink in the photo

After doing that LO yesterday Dylan had his best friend- Sadie- come round so I had to tidy my stash away and run around with kids :) We had a lot of fun they had a go at one of their Wii games until Phil commandeered the TV for football then they ran riot around the garden and the house with the Nerf guns. I had bought some pizza bases and cut up a load of different veggies and bits so they could make their own pizza's which they loved doing and after Pizza, Salad and Ice-cream after it was time for Sadie to go home. She didn't want to go and it took about 15 minutes after her Dad turned up to get her down from the bedrooms lol.

Once the kids were all bathed and sent to bed I went and did my current CJ. This one was about pets and as I had lots to say I made hidden journalling cards so that I had room for the photo's lol. Of course I managed to write on one of the cards upside down so that will give the Journal's owner a giggle I am sure :)

Sunbed baby

I sat down to do a little scrapping yesterday with this fabulous photo of Alex when he was less than a week old. I had been wanting to scrap the photo but was having trouble finding it on my discs so I was over the moon when I got my memory stick out to transfer photos to for yesterday's trip to Boots and found this photo on it already :)

Alex was born severely jaundiced and ended up back in hospital at 5 days old spending 3 days under a special sun lamp basically a sunbed for babies :) I chose the papers wanting to use yellow for the sun and blue to reflect the blue tones of the photo and chose a large journalling card so I could record the memory and then realised this would fit the CCW blog challenge this week as it could fit the sketch and was about family.

I used my sewing machine to stitch the light blue card onto the light yellow (looks cream in the pic) and then hand cut two semi circles from the two pp's using the old school pencil and a piece of string trick to get an accurate sized circle. I then cut a strip from the borders paper and sewed this across the centre hiding the join. I used 2 matching but slightly different border stickers to "join" the picture and journalling card to the rest of the LO rather than them floating in space so to speak.

I finished up with a couple of Prima blooms, a large brad and green gem with some green leaf ribbon from my bargain hunt shopping yesterday and some foam thickers for the title. The PP, borders and stickers are all from Gottacraft's April kit using Crate papers and embellishments.

Ready, Set, Scrap!

Have all my crafty friends enjoyed Scrapbooking day? I know I have :) Our team on UKS set our house a little mini fun challenge to scrap about scrapping over the weekend and I had a photo of me scrapping I wanted to use for my LO. As our printer is naff I had to go into town to get the photo printed (and a few others lol) so took the hour wait and went bargain stash hunting.

I went into a charity shop and got some fabulous sheet music and maps for backing paper and as an avid reader I was so loath to rip up a perfectly good book I spoke to the guy in the shop and they had some books they were going to bin as they were not sellable so I bought 2 of them that I can chop up with a clear conscience :) I then went in all the clothes and accessory shops and got some fab (supposedly) hair accesories with huge flowers on for about a fifth the price you pay for flowers in the craft shops I also got some great peacock feather hairslides and rose ribbon hair slides free by using the points on my boots card. Finally I went to the actual stash shop in town and got offcut bags of ribbons and trims with a huge amount of varied ribbons, bead trims, sequin trims, feather boa trims, and lace. All in all the lot cost me under £15 and if I had bought them from a normal stash shop I think they would have been around £30+ for less volume so I am a happy bunny.

Here is my LO thanks for coming for a nosey :)

Weekly UKS challenge

I usually do the weekly challenge really early in the week but the challenge this week had me unsure where to start and the challenges recently seem to be getting harder. This week the challenge was;

Use distressing

Use more than one flower

Use glitter

Use ribbon

Use journalling

Now I am happy with all of these things but I promised Dylan my next LO would be one of him so while the distressing and journalling were not a problem but flowers, ribbon and glitter on a boy LO hmmmmm. But here it is anyhow I managed to get all the requirements included and am really happy with the finished result and more importantly so does Dylan :)

Scrapology May Challenge

I have really been enjoying the challenges at Scrapology and on UKScrappers and other sites. It has given me something to aim for when I sit there going "Ummm where do I start?" lol. This month the challenge was to do a vine, I am not sure if mine qualifies as it is diecut rather than dimensional but I love the LO anyhow so that is what is important.

I used the lovely die cut page by K&Co my new Cindy Loo cricut cart, plain papers, stickles, gems and these beautiful fabric and sequin butterflies I got at Olympia this year. The journalling cards were all hand cut so I could make them exactly how I wanted them.

Only child

Well I did have an only child for the grand total of 2 years and 8 months :) These are all pictures of Joel in his first two and a half years showing all different stages of his growth. The monthly House Challenge at UKScrappers this month was to follow a sketch and use multiples of items. I actually stuck fairly strictly to the sketch this month and use multiple photo's, journalling, papers, and diecut borders. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew it would be great for these great pictures of Joel that have been sat in a drawer for a decade *blush*. It is harder to do with the other kids as they tend to have fewer solo pictures having already having a sibling around by the time they were born. I am actually going to do a second LO similar to this with the great pictures I have of Joel feeding the birds on the Thames with Dandad and a very heavily pregnant me :)

May Day crafting

We had a lovely May Day this year. My parents and brother came up for a visit with Molly's sister Bella so the pups ran around playing for ages :) We went up to the local farm as they had a Falconry Day and saw some lovely birds although the exhibition didn't quite go as planned when the Falcon flew off and didn't return! They were only 2 miles from home so the guy was certain the bird had flown home but it did make us all laugh that the bird basically said "Screw this I'm off!".

I went on the carousel with the kids it was a first for all of us and I have always wanted to go on one I entrusted Phil with taking Photo's and hopefully will be scrapping them soon :) Phil and Marc took the kids home while Mum and Dad and I visited the craft shop there. It isn't a great shop tbh more cards than scrapping but I managed to find some glass beads to finally do the LO of Alex with his Thomas bubble blower.

When we got home we had lunch and then mum. the kids and I all went in the dining room to craft. I made the Bubble LO;

I am not sure I am entirely happy with it but I will have another look at it next weekend and see if I want to change it then. I then did the wall hanging for Kari, I had these lovely photo's from when Kari was 4 and did all her modelling poses and I got some acrylic scalloped circles to scrap onto directly and made her this hanging;

I really enjoyed doing it and have to get some more masculine shapes to do a hanging each for the boys. I have some more recent model pictures of Kari to scrap as well she is so funny with the poses that she believes are "Modelling" :)